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Monday, March 26, 2012

It has been so nice outside here in southern Pennsylvania over the past week. Spring is finally here! Time to run outside. I much more prefer to run outside, but my neighborhood is hilly. It’s good for short runs, but I still had not found a good place for every day training runs—until now.

Last week, a friend asked me to meet her at our local high school track for a run. I immediately said yes, but I was not sure if I would like it or not. I had thought about running at the high school track lots of times before, but always decided against it. Thoughts of running at my old high school track always brings back stomach churning memories of running during gym class in high school, wearing a hideously unflattering white gym shirt and ill-fitting black cotton shorts . One day each year we all had to run a mile around the track for the presidential fitness test. I hated it! It was the worst school day of the year by far. I never in a million years thought I would ever go back there to run again by choice, but I decided to give to give it a try anyway.

I pulled up to the high school at 6:50, about ten minutes before I planned to meet my friend. The first thing I noticed is that the place I used to park was gone. Covering “my spot” when I went to school there was now a building. I found a new place to park and met my friend. We started the walk toward the track as I felt my old anxieties coming back. As I stepped onto the track, my first though was that is felt a lot smaller than I remember. Four times around the track is approximately a mile. The track used to feel like running around an ocean to me, but now it did not seem so big. When I had considered running on the track, I always pictured it crawling with very fit teenagers running circles around me. That was not the reality at all. The track was not very crowded, there were just a few middle age to older people walking and running, none of whom seemed light years ahead of me in fitness.

I am so glad I went! It felt great to run outside in the nice weather. I have run at the high school track a hand full of times now. My friend and I have an ongoing running date Tuesday and Thursday evening. To moral of this story--Do something every day that scares you. What have you done that scares you lately?